Sometimes I still have nightmares of losing everything and having to start from scratch again.

It's a kind of perverse gift, this sense of insecurity. I makes me ferocious in protecting what I have, including my children and it also gives me a profound empathy. I see that in each of my siblings. Maybe it's because of my mother, who always found the time and resources to help someone else. But I also think it's because we know what it's like to not belong, as you say. To be the outsider.

Thank you for sharing your father's past, and yours. I was surprised when I grew up and became middle class that so many people had histories of challenge, like mine. Life is hard.

I'll have to catch, Call the Midwife. Most of us forget how recent abysmal and widespread poverty was. Industrial Revolution was a time of change when a few people became very wealthy and vast numbers of people had nothing. We are facing another period of profound social/economic change and I think the fear is that we may be faced with a like stage of stark and cruel inequity.